This very day was the anniversary of the baron's death.

　　The baroness kept her room all the morning, and took no nourishmentbut one cup of spurious coffee Rose brought her. Towards eveningshe came down-stairs. In the hall she found two chaplets offlowers; they were always placed there for her on this sad day. Shetook them in her hand, and went into the little oratory that was inthe park; there she found two wax candles burning, and two freshchaplets hung up. Her daughters had been there before her.

　　She knelt and prayed many hours for her husband's soul; then sherose and hung up one chaplet and came slowly away with the other inher hand. At the gate of the park, Josephine met her with tenderanxiety in her sapphire eyes, and wreathed her arms round her, andwhispered, "But you have your children still."The baroness kissed her and they came towards the house together,the baroness leaning gently on her daughter's elbow.

　　Between the park and the angle of the chateau was a small plot ofturf called at Beaurepaire the Pleasance, a name that had descendedalong with other traditions; and in the centre of this Pleasance, orPleasaunce, stood a wonderful oak-tree. Its circumference wasthirty-four feet. The baroness came to this ancient tree, and hungher chaplet on a mutilated limb called the "knights' bough."The sun was setting tranquil and red; a broad ruby streak lingeredon the deep green leaves of the prodigious oak. The baroness lookedat it awhile in silence.

　　Then she spoke slowly to it and said, "You were here before us: youwill be here when we are gone."A spasm crossed Josephine's face, but she said nothing at the time.

　　And so they went in together.

　　Now as this tree was a feat of nature, and, above all, played acurious part in our story, I will ask you to stay a few minutes andlook at it, while I say what was known about it; not the thousandthpart of what it could have told, if trees could speak as well asbreathe.

　　The baroness did not exaggerate; the tree was far older than eventhis ancient family. They possessed among other archives amanuscript written by a monk, a son of the house, about four hundredyears before our story, and containing many of the oral traditionsabout this tree that had come down to him from remote antiquity.

　　According to this authority, the first Baron of Beaurepaire hadpitched his tent under a fair oak-tree that stood prope rivum, neara brook. His grandson built a square tower hard by, and dug a moatthat enclosed both tree and tower, and received the waters of thebrook aforesaid.

　　At this time the tree seems only to have been remarked for itsheight. But, a century and a half before the monk wrote, it hadbecome famous in all the district for its girth, and in the monk'sown day had ceased to grow; but not begun to decay. The mutilatedarm I have mentioned was once a long sturdy bough, worn smooth asvelvet in one part from a curious cause: it ran about as high abovethe ground as a full-sized horse, and the knights and squires usedto be forever vaulting upon it, the former in armor; the monk, whena boy, had seen them do it a thousand times. This bough broke intwo, A.D. 1617: but the mutilated limb was still called the knights'

　　bough, nobody knew why. So do names survive their ideas.

　　What had not this tree seen since first it came green and tender asa cabbage above the soil, and stood at the mercy of the first hareor rabbit that should choose to cut short its frail existence!

　　Since then eagles had perched on its crown, and wild boars fedwithout fear of man upon its acorns. Troubadours had sung beneathit to lords and ladies seated round, or walking on the grass andcommenting the minstrel's tales of love by exchange of amorousglances. Mediaeval sculptors had taken its leaves, and wiselytrusting to nature, had adorned churches with those leaves cut instone.

　　It had seen a Norman duke conquer England, and English kings invadeFrance and be crowned at Paris. It had seen a girl put knights tothe rout, and seen the warrior virgin burned by envious priests withcommon consent both of the curs she had defended and the curs shehad defeated.

　　Why, in its old age it had seen the rise of printing, and the firstdawn of national civilization in Europe. It flourished and decayedin France; but it sprung in Gaul. And more remarkable still, thoughby all accounts it may see the world to an end, it was a tree inancient history: its old age awaits the millennium; its first youthbelonged to that great tract of time which includes the birth ofChrist, the building of Rome, and the siege of Troy.

　　The tree had, ere this, mingled in the fortunes of the family. Ithad saved their lives and taken their lives. One lord ofBeaurepaire, hotly pursued by his feudal enemies, made for the tree,and hid himself partly by a great bough, partly by the thick screenof leaves. The foe darted in, made sure he had taken to the house,ransacked it, and got into the cellar, where by good-luck was astore of Malvoisie: and so the oak and the vine saved the quakingbaron. Another lord of Beaurepaire, besieged in his castle, wasshot dead on the ramparts by a cross-bowman who had secreted himselfunobserved in this tree a little before the dawn.

　　A young heir of Beaurepaire, climbing for a raven's nest to the topof this tree, lost his footing and fell, and died at its foot: andhis mother in her anguish bade them cut down the tree that hadkilled her boy. But the baron her husband refused, and spake inthis wise: "ytte ys eneugh that I lose mine sonne, I will nat alsoelose mine Tre." In the male you see the sober sentiment of theproprietor outweighed the temporary irritation of the parent. Thenthe mother bought fifteen ells of black velvet, and stretched a pallfrom the knights' bough across the west side to another branch, andcursed the hand that should remove it, and she herself "wolde neverpasse the Tre neither going nor coming, but went still about." Andwhen she died and should have been carried past the tree to thepark, her dochter did cry from a window to the bearers, "Goe about!

　　goe about!" and they went about, and all the company. And in timethe velvet pall rotted, and was torn and driven away by the winds:

　　and when the hand of Nature, and no human hand, had thus flouted anddispersed the trappings of the mother's grief, two pieces werepicked up and preserved among the family relics: but the blackvelvet had turned a rusty red.

　　So the baroness did nothing new in this family when she hung herchaplet on the knights' bough; and, in fact, on the west side, abouteighteen feet from the ground, there still mouldered one corner ofan Atchievement an heir of Beaurepaire had nailed there twocenturies before, when his predecessor died: "For," said he, "thechateau is of yesterday, but the tree has seen us all come and go."The inside of the oak was hollow as a drum; and on its east sideyawned a fissure as high as a man and as broad as a street-door.

　　Dard used to wheel his wheelbarrow into the tree at a trot, andthere leave it.

　　Yet in spite of excavation and mutilation not life only but vigordwelt in this wooden shell. The extreme ends of the longer boughswere firewood, touchwood, and the crown was gone this many a year:

　　but narrow the circle a very little to where the indomitable trunkcould still shoot sap from its cruse deep in earth, and there onevery side burst the green foliage in its season countless as thesand. The leaves carved centuries ago from these very models,though cut in stone, were most of them mouldered, blunted, notched,deformed: but the delicate types came back with every summer,perfect and lovely as when the tree was but their elder brother: andgreener than ever: for, from what cause nature only knows, theleaves were many shades richer than any other tree could show for ahundred miles round; a deep green, fiery, yet soft; and then theirmultitude--the staircases of foliage as you looked up the tree, andcould scarce catch a glimpse of the sky. An inverted abyss ofcolor, a mound, a dome, of flake emeralds that quivered in thegolden air.

　　And now the sun sets; the green leaves are black; the moon rises:

　　her cold light shoots across one half that giant stem.

　　How solemn and calm stands the great round tower of living wood,half ebony, half silver, with its mighty cloud above of flake jetleaves tipped with frosty fire!

　　Now is the still hour to repeat in a whisper the words of the dameof Beaurepaire, "You were here before us: you will be here when weare gone."We leave the hoary king of trees standing in the moonlight, calmlydefying time, and follow the creatures of a day; for, what theywere, we are.

　　A spacious saloon panelled; dead but showy white picked outsparingly with gold. Festoons of fruits and flowers finely carvedin wood on some of the panels. These also not smothered in gilding,but as it were gold speckled here and there, like tongues of flamewinding among insoluble snow. Ranged against the walls were sofasand chairs covered with rich stuffs well worn. And in one littledistant corner of the long room a gray-haired gentleman and twoyoung ladies sat round a small plain table, on which burned asolitary candle; and a little way apart in this candle's twilight anold lady sat in an easy-chair, thinking of the past, scarce daringto inquire the future. Josephine and Rose were working: not fancy-work but needle-work; Dr. Aubertin writing. Every now and then heput the one candle nearer the girls. They raised no objection: onlya few minutes after a white hand would glide from one or other ofthem like a serpent, and smoothly convey the light nearer to thedoctor's manuscript.

　　"Is it not supper-time?" he inquired. "I have an inward monitor;and I think our dinner was more ethereal than usual.""Hush!" said Josephine, and looked uneasily towards her mother.

　　"Wax is so dear.""Wax?--ah!--pardon me:" and the doctor returned hastily to his work.

　　But Rose looked up and said, "I wonder Jacintha does not come; it iscertainly past the hour;" and she pried into the room as if sheexpected to see Jacintha on the road. But she saw in fact verylittle of anything, for the spacious room was impenetrable to hereye; midway from the candle to the distant door its twilightdeepened, and all became shapeless and sombre. The prospect endedsharp and black, as in those out-o'-door closets imagined andpainted by a certain great painter, whose Nature comes to a fullstop as soon as he has no further commercial need of her, instead ofmelting by fine expanse and exquisite gradation into genuinedistance, as nature does in Claude and in nature. To reverse thepicture, if you stood at the door you looked across forty feet ofblack, and the little corner seemed on fire, and the fair headsabout the candle shone like the St. Cecilias and Madonnas in anantique stained-glass window.

　　At last the door opened, and another candle fired Jacintha's comelypeasant face in the doorway. She put down her candle outside thedoor, and started as crow flies for the other light. After glowinga moment in the doorway she dived into the shadow and emerged intolight again close to the table with napkins on her arm. She removedthe work-box reverentially, the doctor's manuscript unceremoniously,and proceeded to lay a cloth: in which operation she looked at Rosea point-blank glance of admiration: then she placed the napkins; andin this process she again cast a strange look of interest upon Rose.

　　The young lady noticed it this time, and looked inquiringly at herin return, half expecting some communication; but Jacintha loweredher eyes and bustled about the table. Then Rose spoke to her with asort of instinct of curiosity, on the chance of drawing her out.

　　"Supper is late to-night, is it not, Jacintha?""Yes, mademoiselle; I have had more cooking than usual," and withthis she delivered another point-blank look as before, and divedinto the palpable obscure, and came to light in the doorway.

　　Her return was anxiously expected; for, if the truth must be told,they were very hungry. So rigorous was the economy in this decayedbut honorable house that the wax candles burned to-day in theoratory had scrimped their dinner, unsubstantial as it was wont tobe. Think of that, you in fustian jackets who grumble after meat.

　　The door opened, Jacintha reappeared in the light of her candle amoment with a tray in both hands, and, approaching, was lost toview; but a strange and fragrant smell heralded her. All their eyesturned with curiosity towards the unwonted odor, and Jacintha dawnedwith three roast partridges on a dish.

　　They were wonder-struck, and looked from the birds to her in mutesurprise, that was not diminished by a certain cynical indifferenceshe put on. She avoided their eyes, and forcibly excluded from herface everything that could imply she did not serve up partridges tothis family every night of her life.

　　"The supper is served, madame," said she, with a respectful courtesyand a mechanical tone, and, plunging into the night, swam out at herown candle, shut the door, and, unlocking her face that moment,burst out radiant, and so to the kitchen, and, with a tear in hereye, set-to and polished all the copper stewpans with a vigor andexpedition unknown to the new-fangled domestic.

　　"Partridges, mamma! What next?""Pheasants, I hope," cried the doctor, gayly. "And after themhares; to conclude with royal venison. Permit me, ladies." And heset himself to carve with zeal.

　　Now nature is nature, and two pair of violet eyes brightened anddwelt on the fragrant and delicate food with demure desire; for allthat, when Aubertin offered Josephine a wing, she declined it. "Nopartridge?" cried the savant, in utter amazement.

　　"Not to-day, dear friend; it is not a feast day to-day.""Ah! no; what was I thinking of?""But you are not to be deprived," put in Josephine, anxiously. "Wewill not deny ourselves the pleasure of seeing you eat some.""What!" remonstrated Aubertin, "am I not one of you?"The baroness had attended to every word of this. She rose from herchair, and said quietly, "Both you and he and Rose will be so goodas to let me see you eat.""But, mamma," remonstrated Josephine and Rose in one breath.

　　"Je le veux," was the cold reply.

　　These were words the baroness uttered so seldom that they werelittle likely to be disputed.

　　The doctor carved and helped the young ladies and himself.

　　When they had all eaten a little, a discussion was observed to begoing on between Rose and her sister. At last Aubertin caught thesewords, "It will be in vain; even you have not influence enough forthat, Rose.""We shall see," was the reply, and Rose put the wing of a partridgeon a plate and rose calmly from her chair. She took the plate andput it on a little work-table by her mother's side. The otherspretended to be all mouths, but they were all ears. The baronesslooked in Rose's face with an air of wonder that was not veryencouraging. Then, as Rose said nothing, she raised heraristocratic hand with a courteous but decided gesture of refusal.

　　Undaunted Rose laid her palm softly on the baroness's shoulder, andsaid to her as firmly as the baroness herself had just spoken,--"Il le veut."The baroness was staggered. Then she looked with moist eyes at thefair young face, then she reflected. At last she said, with anexquisite mixture of politeness and affection, "It is his daughterwho has told me 'Il le veut.' I obey."Rose returning like a victorious knight from the lists, saucilyexultant, and with only one wet eyelash, was solemnly kissed andpetted by Josephine and the doctor.

　　Thus they loved one another in this great, old, falling house.

　　Their familiarity had no coarse side; a form, not of custom butaffection, it went hand-in-hand with courtesy by day and night.

　　The love of the daughters for their mother had all the tenderness,subtlety, and unselfishness of womanly natures, together with acertain characteristic of the female character. And whither thatone defect led them, and by what gradations, it may be worth thereader's while to observe.

　　The baroness retired to rest early; and she was no sooner gone thanJosephine leaned over to Rose, and told her what their mother hadsaid to the oak-tree. Rose heard this with anxiety; hitherto theyhad carefully concealed from their mother that the governmentclaimed the right of selling the chateau to pay the creditors, etc.;and now both sisters feared the old lady had discovered it somehow,or why that strange thing she had said to the oak-tree? But Dr.

　　Aubertin caught their remarks, and laid down his immortal MS. onFrench insects, to express his hope that they were putting a forcedinterpretation on the baroness's words.

　　"I think," said he, "she merely meant how short-lived are we allcompared with this ancient oak. I should be very sorry to adopt theother interpretation; for if she knows she can at any moment beexpelled from Beaurepaire, it will be almost as bad for her as thecalamity itself; THAT, I think, would kill her.""Why so?" said Rose, eagerly. "What is this house or that? Mammawill still have her daughters' love, go where she will."Aubertin replied, "It is idle to deceive ourselves; at her age menand women hang to life by their habits; take her away from herchateau, from the little oratory where she prays every day for thedeparted, from her place in the sun on the south terrace, and fromall the memories that surround her here; she would soon pine, anddie."Here the savant seeing a hobby-horse near, caught him and jumped on.

　　He launched into a treatise upon the vitality of human beings, andproved that it is the mind which keeps the body of a man alive forso great a length of time as fourscore years; for that he had in theearlier part of his studies carefully dissected a multitude ofanimals,--frogs, rabbits, dogs, men, horses, sheep, squirrels,foxes, cats, etc.,--and discovered no peculiarity in man's organs toaccount for his singular longevity, except in the brain or organ ofmind. Thence he went to the longevity of men with contented minds,and the rapid decay of the careworn. Finally he succeeded inconvincing them the baroness was so constituted, physically andmentally, that she would never move from Beaurepaire except into hergrave. However, having thus terrified them, he proceeded to consolethem. "You have a friend," said he, "a powerful friend; and here inmy pocket--somewhere--is a letter that proves it."The letter was from Mr. Perrin the notary. It appeared by it thatDr. Aubertin had reminded the said Perrin of his obligations to thelate baron, and entreated him to use all his influence to keep theestate in this ancient family.

　　Perrin had replied at first in a few civil lines; but his presentletter was a long and friendly one. It made both the daughters ofBeaurepaire shudder at the peril they had so narrowly escaped. Forby it they now learned for the first time that one Jaques Bonard, asmall farmer, to whom they owed but five thousand francs, had goneto the mayor and insisted, as he had a perfect right, on the estatebeing put up to public auction. This had come to Perrin's ears justin time, and he had instantly bought Bonard's debt, and stopped theauction; not, however, before the very bills were printed; for whichhe, Perrin, had paid, and now forwarded the receipt. He concludedby saying that the government agent was personally inert, and wouldnever move a step in the matter unless driven by a creditor.

　　"But we have so many," said Rose in dismay. "We are not safe a day."Aubertin assured her the danger was only in appearance. "Your largecreditors are men of property, and such men let their funds lieunless compelled to move them. The small mortgagee, the pettymiser, who has, perhaps, no investment to watch but one small loan,about which he is as anxious and as noisy as a hen with one chicken,he is the clamorous creditor, the harsh little egoist, who for fearof risking a crown piece would bring the Garden of Eden to thehammer. Now we are rid of that little wretch, Bonard, and havePerrin on our side; so there is literally nothing to fear."The sisters thanked him warmly, and Rose shared his hopes; and saidso; but Josephine was silent and thoughtful. Nothing more worthrecording passed that night. But the next day was the first of May,Josephine's birthday.

　　Now they always celebrated this day as well as they could; and usedto plant a tree, for one thing. Dard, well spurred by Jacintha, hadgot a little acacia; and they were all out in the Pleasaunce toplant it. Unhappily, they were a preposterous time making up theirfeminine minds where to have it set; so Dard turned rusty and saidthe park was the best place for it. There it could do no harm,stick it where you would.

　　"And who told you to put in your word?" inquired Jacintha. "You'rehere to dig the hole where mademoiselle chooses; not to argufy."Josephine whispered Rose, "I admire the energy of her character.

　　Could she be induced to order once for all where the poor thing isto be planted?""Then where WILL you have it, mademoiselle?" asked Dard, sulkily.

　　"Here, I think, Dard," said Josephine sweetly.

　　Dard grinned malignantly, and drove in his spade. "It will never bemuch bigger than a stinging nettle," thought he, "for the roots ofthe oak have sucked every atom of heart out of this." His blacksoul exulted secretly.

　　Jacintha stood by Dard, inspecting his work; the sistersintertwined, a few feet from him. The baroness turned aside, andwent to look for a moment at the chaplet she had placed yesterday onthe oak-tree bough. Presently she uttered a slight ejaculation; andher daughters looked up directly.

　　"Come here, children," said she. They glided to her in a moment;and found her eyes fixed upon an object that lay on the knights'

　　bough.

　　It was a sparkling purse.

　　I dare say you have noticed that the bark on the boughs of thesevery ancient trees is as deeply furrowed as the very stem of an oaktree that boasts but a few centuries; and in one of these deepfurrows lay a green silk purse with gold coins glittering throughthe glossy meshes.

　　Josephine and Rose eyed it a moment like startled deer; then Rosepounced on it. "Oh, how heavy!" she cried. This brought up Dardand Jacintha, in time to see Rose pour ten shining gold pieces outof the purse into her pink-white palm, while her face flushed andher eyes glittered with excitement. Jacintha gave a scream of joy;"Our luck is turned," she cried, superstitiously. Meanwhile,Josephine had found a slip of paper close to the purse. She openedit with nimble fingers; it contained one line in a hand like that ofa copying clerk: FROM A FRIEND: IN PART PAYMENT OF A GREAT DEBT.

　　Keen, piquant curiosity now took the place of surprise. Who couldit be? The baroness's suspicion fell at once on Dr. Aubertin. ButRose maintained he had not ten gold pieces in the world. Thebaroness appealed to Josephine. She only blushed in an extraordinaryway, and said nothing. They puzzled, and puzzled, and were as muchin the dark as ever, when lo! one of the suspected parties deliveredhimself into the hands of justice with ludicrous simplicity. Ithappened to be Dr. Aubertin's hour of out-a-door study; and hecame mooning along, buried in a book, and walked slowly into thegroup--started, made a slight apology, and was mooning off, lostin his book again. Then the baroness, who had eyed him with grimsuspicion all the time, said with well-affected nonchalance, "Doctor,you dropped your purse; we have just picked it up." And she handedit to him. "Thank you, madame," said he, and took it quietly withoutlooking at it, put it in his pocket, and retired, with his soul inhis book. They stared comically at one another, and at this coolhand. "It's no more his than it's mine," said Jacintha, bluntly.

　　Rose darted after the absorbed student, and took him captive. "Now,doctor," she cried, "be pleased to come out of the clouds." Andwith the word she whipped the purse out of his coat pocket, andholding it right up before his eye, insisted on his telling herwhether that was his purse or not, money and all. Thus adjured,he disowned the property mighty coolly, for a retired physician,who had just pocketed it.

　　"No, my dear," said he; "and, now I think of it, I have not carrieda purse this twenty years."The baroness, as a last resource, appealed to his honor whether hehad not left a purse and paper on the knights' bough. The questionhad to be explained by Josephine, and then the doctor surprised themall by being rather affronted--for once in his life.

　　"Baroness," said he, "I have been your friend and pensioner nearlytwenty years; if by some strange chance money were to come into myhands, I should not play you a childish trick like this. What! haveI not the right to come to you, and say, 'My old friend, here Ibring you back a very small part of all I owe you?'""What geese we are," remarked Rose. "Dear doctor, YOU tell us whoit is."Dr. Aubertin reflected a single moment; then said he could make ashrewd guess.

　　"Who? who? who?" cried the whole party.

　　"Perrin the notary."It was the baroness's turn to be surprised; for there was nothingromantic about Perrin the notary. Aubertin, however, let her knowthat he was in private communication with the said Perrin, and thiswas not the first friendly act the good notary had done her in secret.

　　While he was converting the baroness to his view, Josephine and Roseexchanged a signal, and slipped away round an angle of the chateau.

　　"Who is it?" said Rose.

　　"It is some one who has a delicate mind.""Clearly, and therefore not a notary.""Rose, dear, might it not be some person who has done us some wrong,and is perhaps penitent?""Certainly; one of our tenants, or creditors, you mean; but then,the paper says 'a friend.' Stay, it says a debtor. Why a debtor?

　　Down with enigmas!""Rose, love," said Josephine, coaxingly, "think of some one thatmight--since it is not the doctor, nor Monsieur Perrin, might it notbe--for after all, he would naturally be ashamed to appear before me.""Before you? Who do you mean?" asked Rose nervously, catching aglimpse now.

　　"He who once pretended to love me.""Josephine, you love that man still.""No, no. Spare me!""You love him just the same as ever. Oh, it is wonderful; it isterrible; the power he has over you; over your judgment as well asyour heart.""No! for I believe he has forgotten my very name; don't you think so?""Dear Josephine, can you doubt it? Come, you do doubt it.""Sometimes.""But why? for what reason?""Because of what he said to me as we parted at that gate; the wordsand the voice seem still to ring like truth across the weary years.

　　He said, 'I am to join the army of the Pyrenees, so fatal to ourtroops; but say to me what you never yet have said, Camille, I loveyou: and I swear I will come back alive.' So then I said to him, 'Ilove you,'--and he never came back.""How could he come here? a deserter, a traitor!""It is not true; it is not in his nature; inconstancy may be. Tellme that he never really loved me, and I will believe you; but notthat he is a traitor. Let me weep over my past love, not blush forit.""Past? You love him to-day as you did three years ago.""No," said Josephine, "no; I love no one. I never shall love anyone again.""But him. It is that love which turns your heart against others.

　　Oh, yes, you love him, dearest, or why should you fancy our secretbenefactor COULD be that Camille?""Why? Because I was mad: because it is impossible; but I see myfolly. I am going in.""What! don't you care to know who I think it was, perhaps?""No," said Josephine sadly and doggedly; she added with coldnonchalance, "I dare say time will show." And she went slowly in,her hand to her head.

　　"Her birthday!" sighed Rose.

　　The donor, whoever he was, little knew the pain he was inflicting onthis distressed but proud family, or the hard battle that ensuedbetween their necessities and their delicacy. The ten gold pieceswere a perpetual temptation: a daily conflict. The words thataccompanied the donation offered a bait. Their pride and dignitydeclined it; but these bright bits of gold cost them many a sharppang. You must know that Josephine and Rose had worn out theirmourning by this time; and were obliged to have recourse to gayermaterials that lay in their great wardrobes, and were older, butless worn. A few of these gold pieces would have enabled the poorgirls to be neat, and yet to mourn their father openly. And it wentthrough and through those tender, simple hearts, to think that theymust be disunited, even in so small a thing as dress; that whiletheir mother remained in her weeds, they must seem no longer toshare her woe.

　　The baroness knew their feeling, and felt its piety, and yet couldnot bow her dignity to say, "Take five of these bits of gold, andlet us all look what we are--one." Yet in this, as in everythingelse, they supported each other. They resisted, they struggled, andwith a wrench they conquered day by day. At last, by generalconsent, Josephine locked up the tempter, and they looked at it nomore. But the little bit of paper met a kinder fate. Rose made alittle frame for it, and it was kept in a drawer, in the salon: andoften looked at and blessed. Just when they despaired of humanfriendship, this paper with the sacred word "friend" written on it,had fallen all in a moment on their aching hearts.

　　They could not tell whence it came, this blessed word.

　　But men dispute whence comes the dew?

　　Then let us go with the poets, who say it comes from heaven.

　　And even so that sweet word, friend, dropped like the dew fromheaven on these afflicted ones.

　　So they locked the potent gold away from themselves, and took thekind slip of paper to their hearts.

　　The others left off guessing: Aubertin had it all his own way: heupheld Perrin as their silent benefactor, and bade them all observethat the worthy notary had never visited the chateau openly sincethe day the purse was left there. "Guilty conscience," saidAubertin dryly.

　　One day in his walks he met a gaunt figure ambling on a fat pony: hestopped him, and, holding up his finger, said abruptly, "We havefound you out, Maitre Perrin."The notary changed color.

　　"Oh, never be ashamed," said Aubertin; "a good action done slyly isnone the less a good action."The notary wore a puzzled air.

　　Aubertin admired his histrionic powers in calling up this look.

　　"Come, come, don't overdo it," said he. "Well, well; they cannotprofit by your liberality; but you will be rewarded in a betterworld, take my word for that."The notary muttered indistinctly. He was a man of moderate desires;would have been quite content if there had been no other world inperspective. He had studied this one, and made it pay: did notdesire a better; sometimes feared a worse.

　　"Ah!" said Aubertin, "I see how it is; we do not like to hearourselves praised, do we? When shall we see you at the chateau?""I propose to call on the baroness the moment I have good news tobring," replied Perrin; and to avoid any more compliments spurredthe dun pony suddenly; and he waddled away.

　　Now this Perrin was at that moment on the way to dine with acharacter who plays a considerable part in the tale--CommandantRaynal. Perrin had made himself useful to the commandant, and hadbecome his legal adviser. And, this very day after dinner, thecommandant having done a good day's work permitted himself a littlesentiment over the bottle, and to a man he thought his friend. Helet out that he had a heap of money he did not know what to do with,and almost hated it now his mother was gone and could not share it.

　　The man of law consoled him with oleaginous phrases: told him hevery much underrated the power of money. His hoard, directed by ajudicious adviser, would make him a landed proprietor, and thehusband of some young lady, all beauty, virtue, and accomplishment,whose soothing influence would soon heal the sorrow caused by anexcess of filial sentiment.

　　"Halt!" shouted Raynal: "say that again in half the words."Perrin was nettled, for he prided himself on his colloquial style.

　　"You can buy a fine estate and a chaste wife with the money,"snapped this smooth personage, substituting curt brutality forhoneyed prolixity.

　　The soldier was struck by the propositions the moment they flew athim small and solid, like bullets.

　　"I've no time," said he, "to be running after women. But the estateI'll certainly have, because you can get that for me without mytroubling my head.""Is it a commission, then?" asked the other sharply.

　　"Of course. Do you think I speak for the sake of talking?"And so Perrin received formal instructions to look out for a landedestate; and he was to receive a handsome commission as agent.

　　Now to settle this affair, and pocket a handsome percentage forhimself, he had only to say "Beaurepaire."Well, he didn't. Never mentioned the place; nor the fact that itwas for sale.

　　Such are all our agents, when rival speculators. Mind that. Stillit is a terrible thing to be so completely in the power of any manof the world, as from this hour Beaurepaire was in the power ofPerrin the notary.